


Tomorrows

by Fictionwriter



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionwriter/pseuds/Fictionwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbie sorts through the remains of a life lived and gone</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrows

**Author's Note:**

> Posted for the Live Journal Lewis Summer Challenge 2013
> 
> Thank you, as always, to Moth2fic for her advice and beta.

Robert Lewis opened the next box, sneezing as dust billowed up and went straight for his sinuses. He grabbed for a tissue and vowed not for the first time that once this lot was sorted he’d find a better place for storage than old shoe boxes on top of the wardrobe.  
  
There were already large piles of books, papers, photos, letters and other odds and ends spread across the bed, not to mention what was stacked on the floor; the piles to keep, the ones to discard, the not-sures and the never-to-be-parted withs. The remains of a life lived and gone. One that the sharp, cutting edges had finally started to wear away from, leaving good, clean memories to be cherished and kept close to his heart. Memories that let him get on with this clean up without the bitterness that had haunted him for so long. Most of it, anyway. Sighing he studied what the box had revealed and his throat tightened a little.  
  
“How’s it going?”  
  
Startled, Robbie looked up. James was leaning against the door frame, regarding him, his expression shuttered, unreadable.  
  
“Getting there,” Robbie told him. “Funny how you never realise just how much stuff you accumulate over the years until it comes time to clean it all out.”  
  
James didn’t respond and Robbie knew he was still hurting, stung by his refusal of help but so unsure of his ground in this that he’d not pushed the matter. Robbie didn’t know what to say or do to change that, make the sticking point that seemed to have come between them lately go away, so he looked back at the contents of the box and didn’t say anything.  
  
“I didn’t think you’d be interested in that sort of thing.” James was closer now, looking down at him from that impossibly long length, a slight smile on his face.  
  
“I. I’m not,” Robbie stuttered, slamming the lid back on the open box, burying what it had revealed. “It’s not mine.” He regretted it straight away; the abruptness, the haste of his actions, and tried to find something to say that would not push another brick into the wall.  
  
 But James had already backed away and was turning to the door.  
  
“There’s takeaway, Chicken Tikka, when you want it. In the kitchen.”  
  
“Wait, lad. I didn’t …” The words finally came but too late, he was gone and Robbie was left staring at a closed door.  
  
He sat for a while amongst the left overs of his former life and wondered what he’d been thinking to let things get this far. How he’d managed to make so many mistakes trying to get it all right that he’d ended up making such a balls-up. He had known from the beginning he was too old and set in his ways to make any new relationship easy work and this one was so different, such unknown territory. He had also known that James was far too young for him and strangely unworldly for all his ‘big brain’ intellect. Or maybe because of it. He should have been the wiser of the two, the one to call a halt before it all went too far. Instead he’d gone along with it; gladly, because of the way James made him feel, the joy he brought him.  
  
Strangely enough it had worked at first. But navigating the still waters of James Hathaway’s psyche wasn’t something he’d been particularly successful with lately and he knew he was partly to blame. He had shut James out too often when he shouldn’t have, like today. Besides, the lad was far too close by half with what he was thinking himself at times and Lewis didn’t take much to second guessing the lad especially when he deliberately chose to be obscure.  
  
No doubt about it, James was an awkward sod. But he was his awkward sod and whatever the cause or fault involved they were missing the point of each other and he hadn’t much of an idea how to fix it.  
  
He sighed again and stood, picking up the box that had caused the latest eruption. He hesitated for a moment then added some of the scattered cards and photos to the load. It was time to try and sort this out, one way or another and this would be a start.  
  
The kitchen was deserted apart from the empty food containers and dirty cups and crockery that littered the table and sink. There was a note on the door of the microwave.  
  
 _Food in here. Press reheat once (not twice). Wait for the bell before opening the door._  
  
Lewis grinned. “I do know how to work a microwave you know. Cheeky sod,” he muttered, pressing the required button, once. But he was talking to empty air.  
  
He wandered through to the front room while waiting for the food to warm up. Unlike the kitchen there was no hint of chaos; two daily papers neat piles on the coffee table, the cushions straightened and the curtains drawn against the encroaching twilight.  It was perfect, cold and empty. Of James there was no sign and the loss stung more than Lewis could have imagined it would.  
  
Putting the box and photos down on the floor by the couch Robbie made his decision. Ignoring the beep of the microwave he headed back upstairs to the bedroom.  
  
##  
  
Robbie worked steadily through the evening and the neat tidiness of the front room had vanished by the time James stumbled in through the front door. It was warmer too in an artificial heating-turned-on way and Robbie had put the television on long ago to drown out the silence in the room and the constant patter of rain on the roof. Now he was sat on the couch watching a movie that he’d lost the thread of after the first few scenes, the flickering lights were managing to keep him awake though, just.  
  
“I thought you’d be in bed by now.” James had his hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans and was slouching in that deceptively uncoordinated way he had. He was wet and dishevelled, his short hair tufted up, the ends glistening brightly with rain drops, the edge of his long sleeved t-shirt tipping out over his belt. He looked discomforted and achingly uncertain but trying hard not to show it. Robbie could smell the beer and cigarettes from where he was sitting.  
  
“Past an old man’s bedtime you mean?” he said, trying for flippancy and knowing he’d failed miserably when James flinched. Before he could counter what he’d said; pull it back, unsay it in some way, James recovered.  
  
“You’re not that old and I’m not as young as you seem to think I am.” The tone was sharp, the argument old. They’d been through this before and Robbie didn’t want to go there again.  
  
“Don’t mind me, lad,” he said. “Sometimes I say things I don’t mean, or don’t mean what I say. Make it come out wrong.” They both knew he wasn’t referring to just the present conversation.  
  
“Then why say it at all?” James asked reasonably  
  
Robbie shrugged, “’Cause sometimes I can’t keep me mouth shut?”  
  
This time James actually smiled, the half lift at the corner of his mouth that gave away the amusement he often didn’t want to share.  “At least we can agree about something, Sir.”

  
Robbie felt a sliver of hope and clutched at it.  
  
“And you can stop doing do that an’ all.” he said, trying for stern and nearly succeeding, which of course had never worked at all on James anyway, and didn’t now.  
  
“Do what … Sir?” James’ tone was perfectly innocent.  
  
“You know damn well!” Of course James knew, he always knew but Robbie said it anyway. “That false servility when you don’t mean a bar of it.”  
  
“My mother always taught me to be respectful of my superiors, S …” James started, but stopped at Robbie’s warning look and grinned at him instead. And Robbie’s heart did that small involuntary flip it always did when James looked at him like that, his face alight, that rare full smile shining just for him.  
  
Robbie grinned back. “Oh, come and sit down. I’ve got something to show you.” Robbie patted the empty space beside him. James moved to fill it.  
  
James had grown serious again, the furrow there between his brows that meant he was thinking too much. “You don’t have to you know. Show me, tell me, things that you don’t want to.”  
  
Robbie shook his head. “It’s not a case of having to, James. I want to. And it’s time.” He picked up the shoe box from where he’s put it beside the couch hours ago, when he wasn’t even sure if James would come back. There were cards inside, bundled together and tied with a piece ribbon, and more than a dozen old birthday candles. Right at the bottom was a book.  
  
“Val kept all the kid’s cards, and the candles they blew out on their cakes,” Robbie said, a shiver of memory slipping through. Shaking it off, he lifted out the cards and studied them for a moment before putting them back. He picked up the book, running his finger over the letters of the title that had amused James before, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus  
  
 “She was all into this new age stuff, Val was.  Bit like you really, always looking for deeper meanings in things. She wanted me to read it, said it would give me more ‘insight into the fundamental differences between men and women’”.  
  
“Did it?” James asked.  
  
“I don’t know, it may have,” Robbie said, sadness just a fleeting shadow across his mind. “But I never got to find out. I left it on the bedside table and pretended I’d get around to it. Then the accident happened and I couldn’t bear to look at it so I threw it into this box and tossed the lot onto the top of the wardrobe. Whatever message it might have had for me wasn’t relevant anymore.”  
  
James took the book from Robbie’s hands and studied the cover, perhaps looking himself for that insight Val had wanted Robbie to have.  When he spoke, his voice was pensive.  
  
“What we have, what we do, doesn’t diminish what you had with Val.”  
  
“I know that lad,” Robbie said, taking the book back to replace it in the box.  
  
“How do you think she’d feel, about us?” James asked, watching Robbie put the lid back on, sealing away another part of his past life.  
  
“Don’t know really. She’d be surprised, I do know that. The same as me. I certainly never thought I’d be doing this with anyone again, let alone another bloke.” He saw James frown again and hurried on, not wanting any more misunderstandings. “Just a surprise, James, that’s all. Surprises aren’t always a bad thing you know. And she wouldn’t mind me being happy.”  
  
“Are you, happy?  
  
“What do you think?’ he said, watching James’ face closely.  
  
The frowned deepened a little and James seemed to consider, but he didn’t answer, just shook his head and looked away.  
  
“Well, you can take my word for it, I am.” Robbie reached up to capture James’ chin and turn him back so he could look into those troubled eyes. “Of course I am, you daft bugger.” He leaned forward, fitting into James’ space. His lips were soft and quick to opened at the touch of Robbie’s mouth. There was the bitter taste of cigarettes and beer but underneath the sweet tang that was James. Robbie revelled in it, cupping his hand to the warm cheek, drowning in the feel of teeth and tongue against his own. He didn’t want to stop the kissing, never wanted to take the right to kiss and touch for granted ever again. James’ hand was a soft rub up and down his side and the “Robbie” whispered against his mouth made him shiver.  
  
It lasted a long time but finally they drew apart, panting and breathless, staring at each other and Robbie reached to draw the line of James’ lip with his finger.  
  
“We’ll be fine, bonny lad. The two of us. If you’ll just learn how to open up a bit. Tell me what’s going on in that overactive brain of yours.”  
  
 James looked at him and smirked. “Pot meet kettle.”  
  
“Aye, I’ll give you that. I’ve not been too vocal me’self. We make a fine pair don’t we.”  
  
James bent forward and kissed him again, light and gentle. “By the law of total probability that seems entirely possible.”  
  
Robbie just rolled his eyes and kissed him back, pulling the long body tight against him. He could feel the beating of James’ heart against his chest and the solid warmth of him through the slightly damp clothes. Val was his yesterday. James was his here and now, and, if he hadn’t stuffed up completely, his tomorrow.  
  
When they had finished they were both out of breath again and James had a very satisfying flush to his pale cheeks. They lay there, close together, sharing quickened breaths. Then James seemed to notice the boxes and general clutter of the room for the first time.  
  
“What’s all this?”  
  
“My past. I packed it all up again and brought it all down here to sort out. Thought maybe you could help.”  
  
“What? From scratch.” James sounded almost horrified.  
  
“Nah, they’re all in the right boxes and piles and ready for sorting now, it’s just a case of deciding what to do with everything.” James looked sceptical and Robbie hurried on.  
  
“It shouldn’t take too long. And I had to move them some time; we’d never get into the bed otherwise.”  
  
“There is that,” James agreed, getting to his feet. “Speaking of which, let’s go. To bed I mean. This can wait. We can’t.”  
  
He held out a hand and Robbie reached for it, his heart doing that flip again as the long fingers linked into his. James hauled him to his feet and he followed gladly as his future towed him up the stairs to their bedroom.

 

End

 

 

 

 


End file.
